North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un orders to further nuclear tests

Kim Jong-Un threatens to turn Seoul and Washington into ‘flames and ashes’

Seoul: North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has ordered further nuclear tests, as military tensions surge on the Korean peninsula with South Korean and US forces engaged in large-scale joint exercisescondemned by Pyongyang.

Since the joint drills began on Monday, the North has issued daily warnings and statements, talking up its nuclear strike capabilities and threatening to turn Seoul and Washington into “flames and ashes.”

Just days after he was photographed posing in front of what state media described as a miniaturised nuclear warhead, Kim said the weapon required further testing. Overseeing a ballistic missile launch on Thursday, Kim ordered “more nuclear explosion tests to estimate the destructive power of the newly produced nuclear warheads," the North’s official KCNA news agency said.

Nuclear strike drillAccording to KCNA, Thursday’s launch of two short-range ballistic missiles, which traversed the eastern part of the country before falling into the East Sea (Sea of Japan), was part of a nuclear strike exercise.

The aim was to simulate conditions for “exploding nuclear warheads from the preset altitude above targets in the ports under enemy control,” the agency said.

Watching the exercise, Kim reiterated an earlier threat to launch an immediate nuclear attack if the “sabre-rattling” South Korea-US drills should harm “even a single tree or a blade of grass” on North Korean territory. “I will issue a prompt order to launch attack with all military strike means,” he said.

South Korea and the United States responded by scaling up their annual joint drills, which Pyongyang has always condemned as provocative rehearsals for invasion.

The UN Security Council responded to the North's latest nuclear test and rocket launch by adopting tough, new sanctions, which Pyongyang condemned as a “gangster-like” provocation orchestrated by the United States.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday voiced grave concern over the growing tensions, and urged North Korea to avoid any further “destabilising acts.”

Case of the missing submarineA North Korean submarine went missing earlier this week, sparking a search by the North's navy. The unknown class of vessel had been reportedly operating off the North Korean coast earlier in the week when it disappeared. American spy satellites, aircraft and ships have been watching as the North Korean navy searched for the missing sub, the report added. The United States is unsure if the missing vessel is adrift or whether it has sunk, CNN reported, but officials believe it suffered a failure during an exercise. The US Naval Institute (USNI) News said the submarine was presumed sunk.